Soviet Log 85
Operation Sour Potato - Nun Force One! aka "We're not where we planned to be but we're right where we need to be" We picked up the action right after our prologue buddies were annihilated. There was a bit of talk about who should feel guilty. Who's suggestion was it that they impersonate us, anyway? There was disagreement on whom but it's probably in the log somewhere if anyone felt motivated enough to look, (which nobody did). With events underway we knew we needed to find the Blimp officers for our Blimpfiltration plan. We headed to the Docks and got lucky when we noticed them driving right by us. It's good to be lucky! We then followed them to Schprockets of all places. It was a simple matter to 'get picked up', lure them into our limo and back to the prepared 'second location', (not, apparently, to be referred to as the "Kill-Room"?). The next block was spent in heavy interrogation of the Nazis. We chose whom to interrogate based on their role: there were 2 Engineers (Roq/Mei), 2 Pilots ( Lesolette/Eva), a Medic (Cyta), and a Communications Specialist (Kat). Most of the party used Disguise to find out what they needed to impersonate their chosen officer. Katya, however, was hungry for a bit of payback. She took some penalties to infatuate her poor comm officer into falling in love with her. He spilled his guts and gave us all kinds of useful things like communication protocols, details of the blimp hierarchy, schedules, and pretty much all the extra data we needed beyond the individual profiles. Unfortunately, for him, at the end of the block we needed to close up loose ends. Most of the officers were cleanly put down but Kat wanted more. She gave him the 'kiss of death' and inhaled his last dying breath has he died to her blades. There could be worse ways to go, like what Roq did to her poor officer. (for the record, Roc was pretty certain that they all enjoyed their circumcisions). With our identities in place, we cast our spells, performed our disguises, and set off to the Docks for the shuttle launch. It was easy to gain access to the Docks with our level 15 disguises, arch false auras, forged documents, interrogated info fresh in our minds and devastating persuasion. Unfortunately, about this time the Blimp moved over to the Forum and bathed the entire area around it in bright light, then we were informed that the shuttle flights had been cancelled for the day. This caused a debate about how to get up to the blimp safely with our identities intact. The shuttle was parked near us but we couldn't figure out how it might help. Ultimately, we decided that the next best option was to head to the Forum so we'd be near the Ritual when it started even if we could no longer drop the Blimp on it. We found ourselves with a Block to prepare, so, with a little help focusing on the task at hand from Roc, we prepped for Forum infiltration, (and not other random side quests to 'start shit up' between the Nazis and the Papacy). Roq and Eva used communications to legitimize our reassignment to the Forum. Kat and Lesolette had a little "Forgery and Fun" putting together new orders for the reassignment. Everyone else did NPC stuff (Mei Lynn - you have a block to do something here, perhaps retroactively, if the Arbiter is kind (hah!)). On the way to the Forum, the Vatican suddenly lit up in a blaze of divine light! They had activated their energy focus tech to bounce a beam of energy off the moon and into the sun. The effect of this was to dampen all of Rome in a tech dampening field which imposed a -4 levels to all tech! This was almost enough for Eva and Roq to throw in the proverbial towel at the thought of re-calculating 'literally all their shit' to be 4 levels lower, but they persevered. Heck, even Katya looked a little less stunning than normal under its effects. At the Forum, we approached the checkpoint as totally legit officers who've been reassigned. Thanks to our stacked disguises, plausible orders (with com backup), and Persuasion (even if reduced due to Vatican fuckery) we gained entry. There was a moment where they were about to call it in but we quickly convinced them that wasn't necessary since we were 'so legit'. The last thing we wanted was anyone else noticing we were there beyond those who could see us directly. In the Forum there were a handful of squads with the usual composition (mage, engineer, soldiers), a ritual mage, a new fovalaka, and some new 'super elite' troops (medic, CQ, and long range). We were so legit however, that it was assumed that we were just another squad assigned to guard duty within the Forum itself. We were within striking distance of the newly constructed altar! In the forum, we found out what the bright light was; a field that brightly lit every possible area making any kind of subterfuge very difficult, and granted bonusses to Perception Checks made within it. Avoiding the temptation to plant Explosives all over the place we just did our best to look like we belonged. Especially when a Super Elite CQ soldier came over to ask us who we were (with her friends all moving to line us up)! Babba Yagga was with us though, when the Nazi rolled a 100% for Perception while examining our Orders, and accepted our story at face value. Our luck continued when Kat scored a Nat-20 Espial and spotted the Milanese Sisters' Nun Force 1 hiding in some shadows of a nearby Arch, just outside the Perception Field. They signalled that they were here to help us, and would follow our lead. We were concerned that the numbers didn't quite add up, though, since with only one Ritual Mage and no Relic it wasn't clear how they would conduct the Ritual? We would find out the answer a little later when a shuttle descended from the Blimp and Fritz disembarked with more mages and Nazi troops, (and the Spear of Destiny!). Shit started to happen pretty quickly after this. The eclipse began, which cut off the Vatican anti-tech beam from the sun and caused it to collapse. Roq, Eva, and most of the Nazis breathed a great sigh of relief that this had happened before any combat began. The eclipse was the trigger for the rituals to begin, so the Nazi Mages gathered around the altar and started channeling energy into it as Fritz placed the Spear atop it. Meanwhile, the Vatican erupted in massive display of occult energy (Eva's new Ley-Line Energy Sensor showed it to be 3-4x what we expected!) as they too began their own Herald ritual. I guess the Nazis didn't like this, so they moved the blimp over to St. Peter's and started wailing on it with everything they had. 5 minutes into the Ritual our Ley-Line Blocking Nanites positioned strategically around St. Peters' activated as expected. However, A Nazi Engineer immediately dispersed some sort of Nanos into the Ley-Line heading to the Basilica, and the Nazi Ritual continued unabated! Furthermore, (and perhaps due to the sheer magnitude of the Vatican Ley Line energy), this only served to diminish it a bit, and it seems the Vatican's Ritual is also on-going! With our original plan in tatters, we decided it was time to move on the Nazis. If we could disrupt their Ritual and then get to the Vatican in time, we might be able to disrupt them, too. Especially with the Blimp providing cover? Perhaps, the blimp might even be enough to do the job, but we didn't want to count on that. Our (revised) plan was simple enough, take out the mages quickly and efficiently. Grab the Relic, if possible. Then slip away in Mei's Portal back to the Vatican location. We identified our targets and attacked! Katya assassinated one Mage immediately with a critical assassinate thrust kalistador sucker punch for 53 DR! He went down hard without ever knowing what hit him. After that, our plan fell apart. The other 2 Mages proved to be both tougher and better defenders than expected so they did not fall to Roq or Eva's attacks. The fight was on! While the NPCs and Nun Force One kept most of the Nazi troops engaged we set about trying to kill the remaining two mages while three Meks, multiple super elite troops, Fritz, and the Fovalaka tried to stop us. The mages were accomplished Defenders so Roq and Kat switched off so she could get her Guild assassin rear strikes on the next mage. This worked quite well with Roq taking on Fritz and some other troops and providing cover for Katya while she worked on Mage no.2. Meanwhile after serving a shitty initiative, Eva was hidden playing Russian doll, popping out Sweeper and Scarlet. While using Scarlet to charge into the fray and smash Mage no.3 Eva, stealthed to the high ground to get a good view of the field. She watched as Roq and Kat showed an impressive display of "tactics" catching crits with their faces. Scarlet's entire flurry against Mage no.3 was deffened as rolling under 10 was the PC theme for the evening. Kat gave Eva a bump with a little inspiration though and she was able to blast off Mage no. 3 Force Skin. Mage no.2 ultimately was taken out - or at least would have been taken out - but for the tricky Super Elite Medic who somehow healed Mage no.2 preventatively so that he didn't even stop his ritual casting. Things got much worse as the Medic also then revived the first Mage to fall. Things then got even worse when Mage no.1 gave up on casting spells at Kat (Resist Magic FTW) and resumed the ritual! We were going to have to take out all three at the same time and then probably even prevent them from being revived since it appears that they can resume the ritual any time during the block. There is a small hope that if we reduce the levels of the Ritual Casters sufficiently it might disrupt the ritual before the Block ends, but we haven't tested that yet since only one mage had been knocked out of the Ritual so far. A regular soldier mage also joined in the Ritual, but we figure if we take out all three of the main mages he won't have enough juice carry things himself. Wishful thinking perhaps! This logger has left a lot of details of the combat out of this week's log for brevity. For example, Mei was locked in ferocious battle with the Fovalaka which was great, but prevented her from opening a Portal as planned. The Nuns were taking out troops and working their way towards us. The Meks were washing us with area effect acid missiles and force cannons. A low defend roll meant Kat got hit with 50DR, destroying her armor, but at least the force 50 effect didn't do much since she's quite at home on her back, (although, for the record, she prefers to be on top). Fritz was using his 'best swordsman in Germany' powers to auto-wound on Crits. Roq got hit twice by this (Shattered Eye Sockets: -4 Strike, & Punctured Eardrums: -4 to Defend), which did nothing to improve her disposition, although this logger wonders if she's secretly enjoying it, since the suffering was so great... Rewards 11 Generic 1 Combat Karlid 3 Random Points and 1 Benny Roq 1 Benny Eva 1 Benny Category:Soviet